Guardians of a Cherry Blossom
by Alpha Draconis1
Summary: An introspective one-shot on what could have happened between Sakura, Syaoran and Tomoyo. Written because of a challenge. SST


Sighing for what seemed to be the eight time that day, Xiaolang Li tried to discourage his wife from putting his daughter through the torture that was fashion. And for the seemingly eighth time that day, he failed miserably.

"Tomoyo, I'm sure she has enough clothes already. Besides, that's the thirtieth-"

"Twenty-eighth."

"_Twenty-eighth_" dress you've dressed her up in this morning. Surely it's enough."

"You worry too much, Syaoran-kun."

There she goes again, calling him by his Japanese name. It was natural coming from Sakura, but he knew Tomoyo was well versed in Chinese and a few other languages. She was doing it on purpose, had even turned it into a sort of nickname for him. And she was making him forget why he had come out here in the first place. What was it he wanted to ask her again?

Tomoyo finished tying the ribbon at the back of the fluffy starlight blue dress.

"There. All done now, Rue." She said, using the child's nickname. Li wondered if Tomoyo reserved the use of nicknames for himself and his daughter. She never used those names for Sakura. Scratch that, "Kawaii" _is_ her nickname for Sakura.

"Thank you, Tomoyo-mama!" the five-year old girl chirped, her dark brown hair, the result of hours of patient brushing, flowing down the back of the dress like a waterfall. Emerald green eyes peeked out excitedly from behind curled bangs. "I think this one is my favorite yet."

"Thank you, dear. Now go on and play."

"Okay, Tomoyo-mama!"

"See, she seems to have enjoyed her time." Tomoyo remarked, following the young girl's movements with an affectionate gaze. "Right, Syaoran-kun?"

He grunted in response, not so willing to admit that he may have been the only one who thought of it as an ordeal. Then, almost as an afterthought, he answered.

"Right."

Tomoyo smiled at him and settled back on the porch to watch his daughter play. The brilliant Hong Kong sun shone it's dappled light through the leaves of Li's lawn, and the air was hardly different from the air in Tomoeda. He wondered if they should visit once his most recent business schedule was done. It had been a long time since he had seen his admired father-in-law.

His brother-in-law however, he could bear not seeing for the next millennium.

Li watched his daughter play and dance around the trees, chasing butterflies. He was sure Tomoyo didn't mind having the grass stains on the dress or she wouldn't have let the girl go off like that. Meanwhile Xing Xue, or Rue as her mothers liked to call her, already had her hair in disarray as she raced squealing across the lawn. He wondered if Touya had ever regretted giving the girl her nickname.

"I'll name her Rue, as a symbol of my regret for ever letting the gaki touch my sister!" Touya had said sarcastically once the girl had been born. Of course, Sakura and Tomoyo just _had_ to take the name for its' pretty sound instead of it's meaning, making it official.

And speaking of Sakura, where _has_ she gone? She was supposed to be buying some groceries. Li hoped she hadn't gotten lost or anything. Briefly, he wondered if he should have asked Wei to accompany her, but dismissed the idea. The old butler did his best, but in his age, it was probably best if he had not gone. No, Li himself should have accompanied Sakura and made sure that she hadn't gotten lost, or tripped, or daydreamed herself into a manhole or something.

"You're worried about Sakura, aren't you?" a voice asked, and he found himself on the porch again. Tomoyo was gazing at him with a sweet smile, just like the ones she used so often when cheering the two cardcaptors on. A sudden curiosity invaded him and he avoided the question to ask one of his own.

"How do you do that? With Sakura, she just smiles at me happily and tells me "Everything's going to be all right in the end." With Meiling, she tells me "there's nothing to worry about 'cause you'll take care of it." And you just tilt your head to the side and put on the serene smile of yours. How do you girls manage to be so . . ."

"Optimistic?" Tomoyo supplied helpfully. "It is because Sakura, Meiling, and I haven't been through the kind of training that you have. Even with all we've been through, we're still relatively naïve when it comes to matters of logic and reality. You, Yue, and Eriol have always been the ones to take on those serious matters."

"But," Li started, confusion in his voice. "When it's all over, it oftentimes turns out that you were right all along, and things turn out fine against all odds."

"Yes, it does."

"So what does-?

"Hush. Don't think too much about it." There she goes again, with her advice that would have beaten those given by his clan elders; men and women decades older than her.

"Besides," Tomoyo continued. "I'm a bit worried about Sakura too. But I've gotten used to it, after having to watch by the sidelines as the two of you risked getting hurt. And I trust that Sakura can take care of herself now."

He nodded.

"Besides, it'd be pretty silly for us to worry about her getting into trouble while buying groceries." Once again, he had no reply to that. Silence overtook them once more as they watched Rue playing.

Slowly, and yet abruptly at the same time, he asked the question that had been nagging at the back of his mind since he first saw Tomoyo tending to Rue.

"Tomoyo? Have you ever regretted marrying me?"

She seemed to give the question some thought. Oddly, she never asked why he asked her in the first place.

"I suppose there were times when I wondered if things would have been better if they had happened another way. What would have happened if Sakura-chan had fallen in love with me first instead of you." She turned her gaze from him to Rue.

"But to tell you the truth, I could not have imagined a better conclusion to our story than this. If it had been any other man than you Syaoran-kun, I might still have married him, given the chance, just to be close to Sakura-chan. But I doubt I would be as happy as I am now, even if that other man had consented in the first place."

He couldn't help but asked the next question. "Then what makes me different?"

She laughed softly. "You're different because by the time you asked me to marry you, I couldn't imagine Sakura-chan without you at her side, whether I was there or not. And also. . . because you're probably the only man I know who would let the woman he loved marry another woman and still accept h- no, accept both of them." She turned back to him.

"Given that, shouldn't I be the one asking you if you're bothered by this?"

"I thought I would be." Li answered. "But when you moved in, I found your company familiar instead of disturbing. Sakura was happier because she was with you and you didn't seem to be in pain all the time anymore."

"But what did _you_ feel?"

"I guess I just felt relieved. I didn't want to see Sakura being sad because she was continually worried over you . . . and I didn't want to you to go on hiding behind a fake smile. You've been always there for Sakura and me, so I couldn't just . . ."

She smiled then, not the fake smile she used when she would see him and Sakura together in their teenage years, but a true smile, the one sweet smile she used to give Sakura as her childhood, and everlasting love.

"So I think that answers your question, Syaoran-kun. I don't think I'll ever regret going into this, because I fell in love with you even as I fell even more in love with Sakura-chan."

He pondered over her words before giving a reluctant reply.

"I love you too, Tomoyo."

She nodded. "I know. Let's help Sakura-chan together, all right?"

"All right." And all of a sudden, he burst out laughing. "You know what? This reminds me of the time when you first offered to help me confess to Sakura."

"True." She said, bursting into giggles herself. "But this time, you were the one who started the questions."

"I'm home!" called out a voice that both of them had come to love since childhood until now.

"Sakura-mama!" Rue shrieked as she bodily threw herself against the woman's legs, nearly making Sakura drop the groceries she was carrying. Two pairs of green eyes danced with merriment as their owners tried to embrace each other while one was simultaneously balancing two bags of groceries.

Tomoyo laughed as she got up from the porch and ran down to join the rendezvous.

"Welcome back, Sakura-chan." She said, taking a bag in one hand, and embracing Sakura with the other.

"Welcome back." Li echoed softly, the brief flickers of a grin barely visible on his lips. "Here, let me take that for you."

He knelt down partially and swept Rue up to ride on his shoulders, took a bag in either hand and gave Sakura a brief kiss on the lips before leading the way back to the mansion, much to the delight of the three girls with him.

The End

Disclaimer: I do not own Card Captor Sakura, nor do I own any ideas about homosexuality and multiple partners. For all of those, I have only CLAMP to thank.

Author's Notes

I cannot believe I actually went through with this. This was inspired after a heated debate with my sister on what Sakura would do if she ever had to choose between Syaoran and Tomoyo. So far, I think I'm the only one who did it this way; if I'm not tell me, because I'd love to read how others took up this concept. At the very least, I can claim to be original, if not exactly good at writing. Hehe.

Now for a few facts about this fic.

a. Yes, Syaoran married both Sakura and Tomoyo in this fic. They're currently living in Hong Kong.

b. As for the issue of Polygamy, it was practiced for several centuries in China before being outlawed relatively recently (about early 1940s, if my sources are correct). However, legal loopholes and a sense of tradition on the majority of the Chinese populace has led to a recurrence in the 1980s, and the issue of whether to keep it illegal or make it legal again is still being fiercely debated.

c. The child Xing Xue (or "Rue" thanks to her uncle) is Sakura and Syaoran's daughter.

As usual flames and reviews are welcome.


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